


some moonlight to cloak us

by ennaih (aquandrian)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jynnic Week, also totally changing the story, and knives as well, cos that happens, cos that keeps happening, lots of pretty dresses and shoes, one of my fave tropes, which morphed into another trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9395513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquandrian/pseuds/ennaih
Summary: Jyn is caught out and lies to her mother. Shenanigans ensue.Written for the Fluff themed day of Jynnic Week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Cannibal's Hymn_ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

She’s screwed. She is so screwed.

“I’m waiting,” says Lyra with that certain note of warning. Beyond her, Galen spreads his hands and makes a helpless face. There’s no dissuading Lyra when she’s in this mood.

“Where were you, Jyn?”

“Mum,” she starts, rallying herself. “I am an adult. I don’t have to --”

“Yes, I realise that,” her mother interrupts, eyes flashing. “But it was your father’s Life Day celebration and you didn’t just disappear for a bit --”

“I had to meet someone,” Jyn mumbles, opting for some of the truth.

“All night? All night! Who were you with?”

“Um.” 

God, maybe she isn’t cut out for this activist life after all if she can’t even think of a lie at this stage. On the other hand, the Rebellion has never had to face her irate mother.

“At least Orson had the courtesy to tell us beforehand he couldn’t make it. You --”

“I told you,” Jyn exclaims. “I said I had a thing, I asked if I couldn’t --”

“It was your father’s Life Day,” Lyra repeats with total menace. 

Jyn gives up and says the first thing that comes into her head. “All right, I was with Krennic.”

In the incredulous silence that falls, she realises two things: one, that may have been an even worse thing to say; and two, she’s going to have to get to him before they do.

“What,” Lyra says quietly. Behind her, Galen draws himself to his full height, his expression warring between confusion and horror.

“Not, not like -- actually --” She stares at them for a moment, her mind working feverishly. “Actually, yes. Mum, Dad, I think it’s time you know. Krennic and I --” A gulp, she can do this, just say the words, never mind the revulsion. “Krennic and I are … dating.”

“What!” Lyra explodes, so loud even Galen flinches.

“It just -- he didn’t -- I didn’t -- it’s very new! We didn’t know whether to tell you yet -- it’s not, it’s not what you think!”

Oh dear god, what has she done?

“What do you mean, it’s not what we think.” Lyra advances on her. “You tell us you’re dating Krennic of all people -- he’s double your age! He’s your father’s oldest friend, he’s -- and it’s not what we think?” Her voice is going up octaves.

“Lyra, now --” Galen tries but it’s too late. Her mother is beyond soothing.

“I don’t see what age has to do with it,” Jyn retorts. “Nari Sable’s latest girl is like half her age and --”

“That’s different!”

“How? It’s exactly the same, and you don’t have any problem with that!”

“Jyn!”

“Well, I can’t help it,” Jyn yells back. “I love him, all right? I love him and that’s the end of it! And we didn’t mean for it to happen but it has, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

She slams out the door and makes it all the way to her room before realising she’s apparently gone from zero to a hundred in her ability to lie. What on earth --

Jyn squeaks and bolts up from the bed, darting out of her room and then whirling right around and hurtling back to the holonet transmitter, only stopping to lock the door. And sure enough, the message is that the Director of the Imperial Army is already occupied with another call. She puts her head in her hands and then puts her head on her knees, groaning over and over again. Her father’s going to kill him -- no, what, her mother is going to kill him. And it’s not like she even cares that much about Krennic. 

Her whole life he’s been just one more part of the family, first the aloof man who would bring her some irrelevant present, and then when she was old enough to understand sarcasm, that weirdly intimidating man with his sneer and his laugh that was too loud. All right, lately she’s finding that she laughs more at his jokes, that maybe she understands his sarcasm better. But she doesn’t know him at all and she still doesn’t like him very much.

If he denies it, then everything’s going to fall apart and she’ll be forced to tell the truth and her mother will go right past rage to an icy silence that’s the worst of all. No, she wouldn’t. Her mother would never be that cruel to her but Jyn really, really would rather not test it. She may be twenty-four and an adult and far more sensible than most girls she knows but she’s not yet ready to break with the small family she loves.

“The Director will speak with you now.”

Jyn sits up, hastily pushing back her hair. “Um, actually. I don’t -- can I just make an appointment? I need to see him in person.”

The officer sighs and glances down at something. “The next available appointment --”

“Half an hour,” she interrupts, already getting to her feet. “I can be there in half an hour.”

“The Director --”

“Please tell him it’s Jyn Erso. It won’t take long. I’ll be there soon! Please tell him, thank you!”

The door closes on the officer still talking.

___________

 

The Director of the Imperial Army did in fact design the grand office he occupies. It’s all white angles and bold grey accents, sleek black chairs and a gleaming black desk behind which he sits, one black gloved hand curled at his mouth, and watches Jyn Erso with a completely neutral expression. 

“Well,” she starts, feeling awkward and angry about it. “You know what’s happened.”

His brows raise, very elegant. “Tell me, anyway.”

She glares a little at this arrogance before remembering she has to have him on her side. “My mother -- my parents are under the impression that we -- that you -- that I --” She sighs deeply and says it. “I needed to lie about where I was last night so I said I was with you and now they think we’re together and I really, really --”

She falters, biting her lip. “I need your help.”

“To perpetuate this lie.”

“Yes.” She sneaks a look at him from under her lashes, then realises how coquettish that seems, and straightens her back, forcing herself to meet his gaze directly. “I need you to go along with this just for a while. Please.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she blinks, groping for something beside the truth. “Because it won’t be for very long and I promise it won’t make things difficult for you --”

“Oh, but it will,” he interrupts smoothly. “It’s not the best thing for my image or my reputation, to suddenly take up with the teenage --”

“I’m twenty-four!”

“-- the very young daughter of my oldest friend. I can’t have that sort of negative publicity.”

“Plenty of other --” she mumbles.

“Plenty of other people aren’t in my position. Where were you?”

She feels herself hunch a little in her seat. 

“You want me to help you,” he says with an almost silken softness, “you need to tell me exactly what you’re up to, Jyn Erso.”

And then she sees it, how to work the situation. Deep breath in, she meets his clear gaze and says, “I’ve made contact with the Rebel Alliance. Or rather, they made contact with me and I, I’ve been meeting with a few of their soldiers over the past few weeks.”

His eyes have gone very sharp and very blue on her, a stillness around him like coiled danger. “Doing what?”

“Talking. They’ve been telling me how I could help them, why I should help them. Why it’s the right thing to do for the galaxy, for me and my family.”

His gaze narrows on her. “And why are you telling me this now?” He leans forward, his white jacketed arms folding along the black desk. “Were you told to do this?”

“No,” she mumbles, a little dizzied by the way his mind works circles around her. “I just -- I wanted to tell you the truth.”

A long silence in which he watches her, barely blinking. She can feel his mind clicking away, dissecting the situation, dissecting her. So she tries to get things straight in her head, establish her own position and all the truths she will tell. 

“Tell me how this began.”

So she does. How she was approached in a training gym by a young man with a pleasant face and smiling brown eyes. How he showed her a few moves and laughed with her about the absurd prejudices of the trainers who didn’t think girls should be taught certain techniques. He had told her he could show her proper street fighting, offered to take her to an underworld fight club. And she’d gone once, twice, and then to a meeting where a man with clomping iron feet and a wheezing respirator hissed at them about rebellions and saving the galaxy. 

“And how do you feel about that,” Krennic asks without inflection.

She knows very well what he’s doing. “I think it’s interesting. He made a lot of very good points.”

“Did he? And you’re convinced?”

“No. I want to listen more. I want to learn more. And then I’ll make up my mind where I stand. And until then, we could help each other, you and I. Couldn’t we?”

There’s a gleam of something in his face now, a sort of surprised smile as he regards her. “Yes, I suppose,” he murmurs. Then briskly, “So what do you need from me?”

“Cover. I’m going to meet Cassian tomorrow night -- his name is Cassian Andor. He says he’s a captain.”

A nod, a quick flick of fingers on a datapad to one side on the desk. Jyn continues, much more secure now, “I’ll tell you everything I see and hear there, and you can tell my parents I was with you.”

He doesn’t look up from the datapad. “All night?”

“All night. I’ll come to your place and leave from there, and then I’ll come back when I’m done. So it looks right.”

He nods. “Sounds good. But you realise,” he glances up, those very blue eyes pinning her once more, “that in order for this to be convincing, we will have to be seen in public together.”

“Of course.”

A tiny frown twitches between his brows. “And you’ll be fine with that? Like say tonight, at the Imperial gala?”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “It’s a little soon,” Jyn admits, “but yes, I think I can make it tonight.”

“As my date,” he says, as if he’s testing her.

“Of course.” Jyn gets to her feet, feeling very smooth and confident in her own right. “You’ll send for me tonight?”

“Yes.”

He says nothing but she knows he watches her as she leaves.

It’s going to be fine, after all.

____________

 

It’s remarkably easy to fall into a pattern with him. She wears her best silken confections of lace and beads and very high heels when she appears with him at gala dinners and Imperial balls. Mauves and greens and blues, ivory silk and sometimes red brocade dripping with gold embroidery. All the glittery gorgeous dresses she’s always wanted to order and wear she does, using her own money from working with her parents and not regretting a single credit. Sometimes he sends her jewellery, glittering diamonds and silver that coil around her bare neck and arms. Or flowers, vivid and perfumed, that she has twined through her hair, to match her gown. She wears it all, and his mouth curls with pleasure when he sees her. It becomes a joke between them that he wears the same damned uniform to every function while she’s never allowed to wear the same outfit twice.

Her parents watch all this with some bemusement. There had been a very explosive meeting during which Jyn screamed a lot about love, and Krennic said tightly that it was really none of Lyra’s business, and Galen quietly moved every sharp implement out of her mother’s reach. And after some very muffled arguments from her parents’ bedroom, Lyra finally calmed down and agreed that maybe it isn’t her business after all and that of course Jyn is a grown woman who knows her own mind and that Lyra completely trusts her daughter to make her own decisions.

No one believes her.

Whenever the Rebellion contacts her and Krennic is planetside rather than travelling, Jyn arranges a date with him. She lets herself into his apartment, nods at the hospitality droid, and changes quickly into the dark shabby clothes that let her move among the crowds of the lower levels of Coruscant. She meets Cassian in the bars and cantinas, attends the clandestine meetings where the Rebellion rhetoric and propaganda is screamed and whispered and put into action. So far she hasn’t been invited along on any of their sabotage missions but it’s just a matter of time. Both Krennic and she know this.

She reports all this to him, withholding nothing. And every time when she’s done and about to leave, her hand on the doorknob, he asks her without looking, his tone mostly amused, “And are you convinced yet?”

“Not yet,” she laughs back and leaves as the murky Coruscant dawn breaks over the skyline.

Sometimes they train together. It happens quite accidentally, because one day she picks up his custom blaster from where it lies on a side table. Curious, she tests the weight and balance of it, sniffing a little at the polished wood insets. He’s watching her with a very wry grin.

“Show me,” she asks, holding it out to him.

So he takes her to his private shooting gallery, and she spends a good half an hour or so, blasting happily away at the targets, learning to snap her head out of the way of the ejecting cartridge and whacking in the replacement three-shot. “It’s a got a great kick to it,” she tells him and he agrees, his mouth curving as he takes it back.

From then on, they attend target practice at least once a week, especially when she comes back from the Rebellion meetings with information on their weapons and ammunition. He listens, takes down notes on his datapad, and then they train together on those weapons. Sometimes the blasters are hopelessly antiquated and he spends half the time bitching about the Rebellion being equally hopeless and antiquated. Then sometimes they’re standing shoulder to shoulder, trying to outdo each other in speed and accuracy and the sheer number of obliterated targets. The first time she beats him, he’s so outraged that she laughs until there are tears in her eyes.

“No fucking Neuvian sundae for you tonight,” he yells, storming off.

“Oh come on!” She hurries after him. “Don’t be such a big baby, what sort of example is that for the Imperial Army?”

He snorts but steals the zherry from her sundae at dinner that night. Sometimes she eats with him before leaving to meet the others. Sometimes she’ll have breakfast with him in the morning before returning home. Then he’ll shamble out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes, silver hair on end, barefoot and in a deep blue chequered robe belted at his waist. She learns that he’s incapable of speech before his morning caf, that he has to drink it standing at the big picture window, gazing out at the Coruscant skyline. And that he watches her with sleepy blue eyes and a not so hidden smile as she ploughs her way through her breakfast.

He listens to her reports, asks her questions that get her thinking about the people and the situation from completely different angles, enough that sometimes she finds herself in a Rebellion meeting with him behind her eyes. 

The Galactic City tabloids focus on them from the very first Imperial gala they attend together. When her fingers dig into his jacketed arm, he covers her hand with his. Never leaves her side the whole night, his laugh sharp and brilliant as he includes her in the conversations with diplomats and Imperial officers. It takes a few more times before she finds her own high society mode. 

Galen and Lyra Erso’s rebellious daughter may spend her days in labs and caves, wrangling calculations and tramping mountain ranges, but here she comes into her own, a glittering vivacious woman as witty and only a little less volatile than the man in white with his smile inclined toward her. They seem to temper each other, maybe even take it in turns to be outrageous or suave in company. Always entertaining, the tabloids agree.

Jyn likes it when they dance, the elegance of them together swirling across the polished floors under the glittering chandeliers. The way he takes her in his arms, one gloved hand light on her bare back, the other clasped around hers. She wears extremely high heels just so she can look him in the eye, even if that means she has to learn not to topple off them. When he realises this, he sends her the most gorgeous ornate shoes with feathers and tiny seed pearls that she slips her bare feet into. She loves that they make her legs look incredibly long and sleek. He never says anything but when she wears them for him, her skirt high above her knees trailing into long feathers behind her, she kisses his cheek. And his smile is deep and wide as he turns away to take her a glass of wine from a passing tray.

There’s a shyness to him that she notices, so unexpected, and maybe she never would have known if he didn’t send her these things he notices she loves. Because it’s only when she tries to thank him with word or a chaste kiss that he gets all inarticulate and just a little blushy. It’s extraordinary.

They like each other’s company and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Galen takes to smiling proudly at them, and even Lyra relaxes enough after a few weeks to say, “It’s going well, then? You seem very happy with him …”

Jyn smiles at her mother. “He’s wonderful. I had no idea it would be like this.”

It’s only a few seconds later she realises. Remembers that it isn’t real at all. 

Or is it? 

She pushes that thought aside, focusing on the mission at hand, on her own changing thoughts about the Rebellion and the Empire, the delicate play of information to be gotten from one and released of the other. Krennic tells her enough to make her useful to Cassian, enough that eventually there’s talk of introducing her to the speechmaker and the apparent leader of this faction.

One night Cassian sends her a message on her private com link at the very last minute, says it’s too dangerous and that the meeting’s been cancelled. Jyn frowns, calling out, “Have you got more troopers patrolling tonight? More than usual?”

Krennic lifts his head from where he’s fiddling with the back of the holofilm player. “No, why?”

She lays the com aside. “Cassian just cancelled the meeting. I wonder why.”

His eyes sharpen in the pearly light of the living area. “There was some talk of an Algeran Faction attack but it’s nonsense. Just rumours.”

“Huh.”

She stays anyway and they watch a holodrama together, a darkly funny story about a diamond heist. It’s one she’s seen before, delighted that he seems to know the good lines as well as she does. There’s a lot of laughter and jostling over the moss chips and cracknuts. She falls asleep before the holo ends, tired from the day’s work with her father. Her dreams are of gorgeous gowns that swing out, feathery and scarlet and dazzling, swirling across a black and white floor, dancing into a man’s black gloved hands. 

When she wakes at one point, the Coruscant moons are spilling soft light across the floor and where she lies against Krennic’s slowly breathing chest. Half dreaming, she peers at his sleeping profile, at the way his hair falls silver and relaxed across his brows, at the thin pout of his mouth. His lower lip is a soft curve, just that little bit off centre. She sighs and sinks back into sleep, back into her dreams of dancing.

In the morning, he smiles drowsily at her before going in search of caf. His eyes are so kind.

__________

 

Cassian tells her that Saw Gerrera wants to meet. “Good,” says Krennic when she conveys this. “What weapons are you taking?”

“Baton, knives, and blaster.”

He nods and watches as she checks each one before strapping and holstering them to her person. She swathes her head in the cowl, feeling herself change into that girl of the streets, her mother’s athletic confidence quiet in her muscles. Silent, Krennic hands her the com link which she stows away in a pocket.

“You’ll be all right,” he says, almost like he’s worried. She gives him a slightly odd look, astonished but understanding too.

“Of course. Don’t wait up,” she teases and rather outrageously kisses him on the cheek just to make him laugh.

“Piss off,” he mutters, pushing lightly at her. That Mid Rim accent delights her every time he lets it slip, usually when they’re alone and sometimes into her ear at some stuffy dinner. It’s one more small secret between them.

Cassian meets her a few blocks from Dex’s Diner and takes her through a maze of alleys to an underground cellar where Saw Gerrera comes out of the gloom with his fierce watery eyes and his paranoia like a cloud of ash around him. He talks at her about trauma and the atrocities of the Empire, all things she knows and accepts. And then he asks her about the Director of the Imperial Army. “What can you tell us about him that will be useful to the Rebellion?”

For one instinctive moment, she wants to reply, “Nothing at all.”

But that’s not clever. She considers for a moment, letting them see it, and then tells them enough to raise her credibility in Gerrera’s estimation. That the Director is ambitious, that he wants above all things an audience with the Emperor, that his temper is unpredictable except when his pride and reputation is threatened and then it is very predictable. “He can be manipulated,” she says, and it makes her a little sick to her stomach.

Gerrera puts the respirator to his face, wheezes in as he stares at her. Lowering it, he says, “Do you think you can bring him to us?”

“I don’t know,” she replies honestly. “Let me think about it?” A pause and then she asks with difficulty, “What would you do with him?”

Before he can answer, Cassian supplies, “He is a family friend. You’ve known him all your life.”

“All my life,” she repeats, her voice soft.

Gerrera nods. “The bonds of family … are the toughest to cut, even in service of the cause.” He puts one heavy gloved hand on hers. “Remember what is right, Jyn Erso, what is most important of all. Freedom, always.”

As they make their way back to the grimy streets, Cassian says, “He isn’t just family, is he?”

He smiles a little at her startled guilty reaction. “We read the tabloids too, you know.”

“I don’t --”

“It’s all right.” But there’s a hardness in his eyes she sees now, the same implacable resolve of a Rebellion soldier. “What will you do if he finds out what you’ve been doing? When he finds out.”

She lies steadily. “I don’t know.”

Cassian nods, glancing around at the shadowed alleys around them. There’s the sound of blasterfire and yells in the distance, some street fight that makes neither of them turn a hair. “But you’ll think about what Gerrera said. How you could bring him to us.”

“Yes. What, what if I can’t? What if he won’t --”

Cassian smiles at her. “You’ll find a way.” He pauses, distracted by a sound, then asks, “Do you --”

Three street thugs step out of an alley, bristling with weapons and aggression. “Credits,” says one, aiming a vicious augmented rifle at them. “Now. Hand them over.”

Cassian sighs and goes for his blaster. In the ensuing chaos, Jyn drops and rolls, knives out. Her blood roaring with exhilaration, she kicks the feet of one guy out from under him, slicing the back of his knees as he comes down. Someone wallops her in the head, another blow in the side of her ribs, knocking the wind out of her. She roars fury and slashes up with the knife, blood splattering across her face. Cassian is fighting somewhere close, his blaster flashing, grunts and the sounds of fists hitting flesh. She gets her elbow up into the man’s face and sinks her knife in his throat to the hilt, whipping it out to a spray of more blood as she turns and the body thuds to the ground. For one ghastly moment, she’s looking down the barrel of that rifle and then there’s the sound of three blaster shots in quick succession. One, two, three, but she’s dropped and rolled before the second. 

It’s over very quickly after that, Cassian struggling up, bruised and dirtied.

“Are you all right,” she asks, helping him to his feet.

“Me? You -- look at you.”

Jyn wipes the side of her face, laughing somewhat shakily at the blood that comes away. “Oh, that. That’s fine. Um, what are we going to do about --” She gestures at the three bodies in various states of devastation.

“Ugh.” Cassian bends over, bracing his hands on his knees. “Leave them. Who cares?”

When she returns to the apartment, the lights are out. She cleans up in the ‘fresher, changing into the spare pajamas she now keeps here. Her body aches, the bruises blooming fresh, bruises she’ll have to hide from her parents over the next few days. In the corridor, she pauses, then heads to the bedroom door. One quick tap and she slips in, her vision adjusting to where the covers move and he sits up, murmuring for the lights to ten per cent.

“You weren’t supposed to follow me.”

Krennic regards her, quite expressionless. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t make me go for your blaster and check the cartridges. I heard the shots. I know what your blaster sounds like.”

His mouth compresses. “What did you find out tonight?”

“Fine. Be like that.” She turns to leave, and then comes to sit on the end of his bed, rubbing a hand over her face. That’s a mistake in itself, the little cuts and grazes making her wince. Behind her, Krennic moves, dislodging the covers. And then he’s at her back, the reek of ointment on his fingers as he murmurs, “Show me,” and turns her face gently towards his.

Jyn closes her eyes as he tends to her. “They want me to bring you to them.”

He grunts deep in his throat. “Ambitious of them.”

She giggles. “That’s what I said about you.” His touch is firm and quick, the ointment cool on her tender skin. Opening her eyes, she looks at his face in the soft light. “What are we going to do?”

He doesn’t seem particularly disturbed, his eyes flicking up to hers then down at the tube he’s recapping. “We’ll think of something. Go sleep.”

She crawls into bed in the spare room, collapsing with gratitude against the pillow. A few seconds later, she groans and flops onto her other side, gingerly touching her scraped face. Thinks of him in the shadows of that alley, the fact that she never saw him at all. He couldn’t have been in his usual idiotic uniform. Now she wants to know what he wore, how he snuck away from the guards and Death Troopers. “Stupid absurd man,” she mutters just before she falls asleep.

___________

 

She tells her parents that her injuries are the result of a training session at a new gym. Lyra says there’s absolutely no need for such violence and she should know better. Jyn agrees. For the next few days, she only works with her parents and stays home, waiting for her bruises to heal and fade. 

At the next Imperial ball, she leads Krennic out to the palace gardens so they can talk in relative privacy. Of course there are people wandering the shrubberies, occupying the darkest corners with furtive giggles and heavy breathing. Jyn links her bare fingers with his gloved ones, careful on the gravel in her very expensive shoes with the gold filigree work up the back of the extremely thin high heels. Her gown is blue and gold brocade tonight, high collared and backless, falling in long flutes to her ankles. With him in his white cape and his eyes so very blue, they make a particularly magnificent picture.

“What are we going to do,” she asks, her voice low.

“I was thinking. Why don’t we give them what they want?”

She stops, aghast. “What? Are you insane?”

He lifts a finger, head cocked. “Think about it. If --”

“I have thought about it, and you’re insane! No!”

“If,” he continues with severe patience, “they net themselves such a high ranking prisoner, that prisoner --”

“Will have to be seen by Rebellion command,” she completes with horrified admiration.

“Mmm.”

“But how, how do we get you out?”

He grins at her. “Oh, people go missing all the time, don’t they? Prisoner transports get attacked, hostages disappear. All sorts of things happen -- what do you mean, we?”

She glares right back. “I’m not letting you go alone. And anyway,” she talks right over his protests, “if I bring you in, you’re my asset. My credibility with them. I have to go with you.”

They walk along for a few minutes in thoughtful silence, the music trailing them, tiny golden lights in the trees and greenery bordering the gravel path.

“You can’t tell your parents.”

“No, of course not.”

Krennic sighs heavily. “It’s going to be hell for them. Lyra will --”

“Mum’ll go berserk. And Papa -- I don’t know what Papa'll do.”

He glances at her, troubled. “Maybe we should tell them.”

“And force them to lie? No, it’s better they don’t know anything. That way they’ll be totally truthful and hopefully not be at risk at all. Hopefully.”

He puts his other hand over hers, squeezing gently. “I’ll set guards on them. They’ll be fine.”

“I know.” 

But now as she looks at him in the half glow of moonlight and the reflected gold of the little lamps, she worries. What if she can’t protect him after all? What if something terrible happens in Rebellion custody? All sorts of things happen. And zealots will be zealots, no matter the dogma.

He looks steadily at her. “Stop worrying.”

“I can’t help it. What if --”

“Everything will be fine. I’m not completely useless, you know,” he says with some acidity. “I can defend myself, and I know you can too.”

“I know. But --”

“Shh,” he murmurs and presses his lips lightly against hers. Jyn gasps, shocked and then shocked again for an entirely different reason. Her skin is suddenly hot all over, suddenly she knows how he tastes and it’s slid her into a whole new world of dizzying possibility. Krennic has already pulled away, his face set as they walk along. 

“Wait,” she breathes.

But then someone speaks on the path ahead, loud and intrusive. On an impulse, Jyn tugs at Krennic’s arm, pulls him into the shadow of the shrubbery where it’s all dark green and fragrant with unseen flowers. As her sight adjusts, a moon comes out from behind a cloud and she looks up into his face, at the fine sculpted shape of his mouth and his high cheekbones. “Orson,” she says softly, seeing him like she’s never seen him before. Seeing how he looks at her with the same soft shocked discovery.

She steps into the circle of his arms, into the subtle scent that is him. And one gloved hand comes to move against her bare back, two fingertips in tiny slick strokes of warm leather on her cool skin, over and over again until she catches her breath with such painful lust, her lips parting lush up at him. He touches his other hand to her chin, his thumb tipping her face up. She sighs as he lowers his mouth and kisses her, so delicate, so new and breathtakingly tender she feels like she might splinter apart like finest crystal. Her hands wrapping around his wrist, she kisses him back, tasting wine and him, wanting him to take her down to the grass. Wanting him to spread his cape below them and take down the top of her dress, wanting his mouth on the soft tips of her breasts, make love to her under the dark blue skies with the scent of flowers and night greenery around them.

The flash goes off like a bomb, blinding her, making him snarl. He grabs her up against him, telling the tabloid photographer to fuck right off but she knows as well as he that the images will be everywhere tomorrow. The Director of the Imperial Army caught in the gardens with his young trophy sweetheart whom he hasn’t married yet and probably never will.

Her parents take her home that night, livid and grumbling all the way. Jyn floats through the next few days in a haze of wonder and moments of utter terror at the situation she’s put them both in. How she could lose him now that, now that --

Oh god.

They’re supposed to attend a dinner for some visiting dignitary. She readies herself and turns up at his apartment a couple of hours before she’s expected, shedding her long coat over the couch before she walks directly into his bedroom without knocking. He freezes, barechested, clad only in the dark breeches, his hair still uncombed and flopping across his forehead. Pleased, Jyn twirls carefully in the centre of the room, the Coruscant sunset catching the lustre of her gown. “Do you like it?”

Sheer gold tulle that clings to every curve and contour, hiding nothing and revealing everything but for the delicate goldwork from shoulder across breast and curling around to the back, the same delicate goldwork that curves around the juncture of her thighs like a subtle obscene frame and slides down the line of each leg to pool around her high fine heels. Her hair is up, and she turns her head to look at him in the sunset golden glow, so confident in this because she knows she’s wanted.

“What do you think,” she asks, holding her hand out to him.

He moves towards her like he can’t help himself, faint colour across the rise of his cheekbones. But there’s a certain clarity in his beautiful blue grey eyes as he takes her hand and gazes down into her face, the heat between them tangible.

“Is this a good idea,” he murmurs, already looking at her mouth like he’s going to devour her. 

Jyn tips her chin up, defiant to the last. “I don’t care.”

Krennic laughs softly, that same wildness sparking in his eyes.

And it is wild. In his bed, touched by his hands, devoured by his hot mouth. He doesn’t rip the gown like she half hopes. Instead he licks her through it, wetting the fine material so thoroughly it may as well not be there, until she’s writhing and moaning under his mouth. It bunches up in his hands, dragged up the length of her bare legs spreading for him, and he clenches it in his fists when he fucks her, his spine moving hard and graceful under her tracing fingers. Her heels digging into the covers, she holds onto his shoulders, sinks her teeth into his skin when he fucks her faster and harder, his breath a storm against her ear. He says her name as he drives into her, makes it sound like filth and a prayer. Somehow it reminds her of everything he has been in her life, all that and now this, this joy breaking fierce and desperate through her. Her hair tumbles down, he kisses her when she comes, so with her in the moment, his eyes so blue and beautiful. She holds him when he comes, his lashes pale against his flushed freckled skin as he gasps and shudders, and she knows she cannot, absolutely cannot let the Rebellion take him from her.

They never do make it to the dinner.

___________

 

The Rebel Alliance captures the Director of the Imperial Army a few days later. He is taken unawares in an alley off a market, disarmed of his custom blaster, and is offworld in a matter of an hour. In the cargo hold of the light freighter zooming through the blue glitter of the jump, Saw Gerrera regards the prisoner. The white jacket and cape are gone, no sleek boots and dark breeches. Rather, the former Director seems unnervingly ordinary, a silver haired man in dark blue denim jacket and jeans, a light grey tshirt and scuffed brown boots. 

“Not a good day to go incognito,” remarks Gerrera.

“Clearly.” 

“What’s happened to your Death Troopers?”

“I gave them the day off.” Krennic laughs shortly.

Across the cargo hold sits a man in monk robes, holding a staff, his eyes filmed with blue. Jyn wouldn’t pay him much attention except for the fact that he keeps turning his head in a way that suggests he’s listening to more than the terse conversations between Rebellion soldier and Imperial captive. Beside her, Cassian is watching hard, gripped by the same tension.

“You know what we want?” Gerrera is being particularly cryptic in his success.

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t a clue,” replies Krennic, his Imperial accent firm in place. “Coordinates, is it? Are you lost?”

“You will tell us everything you know about the Empire’s plans for the galaxy.”

“That is rather a lot,” Krennic drawls. The bastard is enjoying himself far too much, enough that Jyn seriously wonders whether she could get away with smacking him into silence. “You’re very confident that I’d know it all, or even remember. The memory isn’t quite --”

“You will tell us everything you know.”

“Of course,” says Krennic, inclining his head ever so graciously. “And what am I to expect in return?”

“Aside from your life?” The words burst out of Cassian. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, realising with a sinking heart that if worst comes to worst, she’s going to have a very hard time killing him. Maybe she could just maim him out of the way.

Krennic smiles in their direction, his eyes touching her for a moment before he returns his attention to Gerrera. “That’s very kind but really, I think I’ll require more. After all --”

“You’re a liability to the Empire.”

She sees him stiffen, a nerve touched. “I am their most valuable asset,” he says tightly. “I think you’ll find the Emperor will be very displeased --”

“What can you tell us about the battle station they’re building?”

Krennic’s brows lift. “I can tell you that constantly interrupting me isn’t going to get you anywhere. What about the battle station,” he says, bored.

Cassian breaks in again. “It’s your project, isn’t it? What is its purpose?”

“To mount a battle, I imagine.”

She is not going to smile, she is not going to smile. As Jyn bites the inside of her cheek very hard, the monk with the filmy blue eyes turns his head sharply, almost angled toward her. 

Gerrera and Cassian Andor question Krennic all the way to Yavin 4, and she tries to control her reactions, watching the monk and his burly protector companion. There have been tales of Jedi monks, of men who use the Force to tap into people’s emotions and thoughts. Until now, she’d more or less dismissed that as fantasy. But now with the way he keeps reacting to her, it’s beginning to look like a real possibility.

It also means their plan is more or less screwed.

When they make landing on Yavin 4, Krennic is taken immediately before the council. She is presented almost as an afterthought. There’s an awful lot of yelling and discussion, a complete chaos of voices raised in outrage and disagreement. In all that, Jyn scans the crowd for the monk, locks down on her inner self as best she can. It may already be too late but she can’t risk it.

As Krennic makes absolutely no secret of his disgust at the cacophony, a voice nearby startles her into reaching for the knife that’s already been taken away. “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”

“It’s no game,” she snaps, disconcerted by the monk’s faint smile. Beyond him, the burly fellow is looking very unimpressed with the arguments around them. 

“No? No,” the monk adds reflectively. “I understand that.”

“What,” she challenges. “What can you possibly understand about Krennic and I? Me. I.”

He turns his head and looks directly at her ear. “You love him.”

“I --” As she stares, dumbfounded, he moves smoothly to his companion’s side and declares that he’s very hungry and would like some food now.

The hideous nerve of some men. She fumes to herself all the way through the hours of talk and then the hours of interrogation and then the hours of trying to sleep in her cell. They won’t tell her where Krennic is being held, whether he’s in the next cell or elsewhere on the base. When she asks to speak to Cassian or Gerrera, she’s told they’re in conference with Alliance command.

At some point the next evening, Cassian unlocks her cell door. 

“I need to see him.” She doesn’t push past, instead fixes Cassian with all her anxious calm.

“Yes, I know.” Cassian smiles a little at her. “He’s been asking for you. This way.”

There’s a warmth coiling inside her, soft and tender, all the way down the corridors and through the hangars, into the night air and into another building and set of corridors. Then the cell door is unlocked and opened, closes behind her. Jyn doesn’t think, just hurls herself into his arms, too relieved to cry, too overjoyed to do anything but cling to him and breathe in his smell, feel the heat of his skin where it touches hers. He holds her hard and then drags her to the narrow bed in the corner of the cell where they huddle together against the wall, wrapped around each other, kissing. Jyn traces all the shapes and lines of his face, runs her hands through his hair. Aside from the few bruises during the capture, he’s unharmed. 

“You’re all right,” he asks, his eyes and hands anxious on her.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Have they questioned you?”

“For hours,” he groans. “And they’re not done yet. What did they ask you?”

“Everything. Listen.” She knows they’re not being monitored, having gotten Cassian’s assurance on that. Now she smooths her hand along the bare contour of Krennic’s forearm and says to him, “I have an idea.”

He waits, quizzical.

“We could … give them the plans. To the battle station, I mean. Or tell them where to find them.”

Krennic goes quite still, his eyes cool on her. “Why would we do that?”

“Aren’t you tired of all this? All the scheming and manipulation, all the backbiting and politics, the bureaucracy? What’s left back in the Empire for us? For you? The Emperor? Tarkin?”

“Your parents.”

Jyn bites her lip, subsiding. “Yes. But they don’t have to stay there. We could get them out. We could -- don’t you want something more,” she asks, breathless now, the monk’s words whirling in her mind.

Krennic’s voice goes very quiet. “Like what?”

She leans against him, her fingertips trailing up the centre of his chest, against the thin grey fabric. “You and me. Away from all this. On some distant lovely moon where no one can find us. Where we can just … be together. Let them fight it out, let them kill each other over their differing ideas on how to run the galaxy. Can’t we just … have each other?”

Now his expression flickers with some amusement, the beautiful eyes roaming her face. “And we won’t be bored?”

She shrugs. “If we are, we’ll come back and screw things up for everyone.”

He laughs, loud and perfectly wicked. His hand slipping under her hair, he tips her head back and kisses her for several long thorough seconds.

“All right. Let’s try it.”

For something that started out as a panicky lie and an absurd fix, it works very well.

**Author's Note:**

> And just so you know, my template for fake relationship AUs is pretty much [Q.E.D by Punk](http://archiveofourown.org/works/354059).
> 
> And thank you to jynnics who let me talk this out at her and work out how I wanted Jyn to be. You're a gem, you are! <3


End file.
